You go, Girl!

Good for you! :) I wish I had your oomph! The crap piles up so quickly here, and we're not handy, do-it-yourself people.

Kathsgrdn I admire your resolve. When the house is decluttered and you have your new laminate floor, it is going to look awesome!

It's a great feeling to be "on a roll", isn't it?

Keep it up! De-cluttering and de-junking are projects that reap huge benefits.....and even a little bit of effort every day can reap big benefits.

It's easy to become overwhelmed and refuse to even start! All it takes is a little bit of effort every day.

Cleaning is good, but not on vacation time.

We have some great consignment shops around here. If you have any in your area, check them out. My friend got a beautiful dining room set for around $400. You can get good furniture (solid wood) for a lot less than compressed wood at a furniture store. They have beautiful rugs, too. Also check if you have a Habitat for Humanity resale store. People donate their old stuff and Habitat sells it for very reasonable prices. My friends son was horrified that his mother was shopping at a "used" furniture store until he went. Now when he comes to visit, he wants her to take hime there. LOL

Congratulations on a great job. New furniture and new floors. I would use a table for a desk. Maybe a library table instead of a desk. That cheap wood stuff just didn't last when we have had it in our home. Good luck on the garage. BTW how are your neighbors? Have you had luck keeping them off your property?
Mary

I totally agree with second hand shops/sales for nice furniture.
I bought a solid wood side table at a garage sale a few days ago for $2, painted it with a couple dollars worth of chalk paint, it is beautiful and sturdy.

Yes, keep up the good work. Since you have to go back to work, scale back and just tackle a little at a time.
I reorganized my basement and threw out three large bags of trash! The organizing part went faster than I thought, but I think I can still pare down.

It is difficult getting rid of things. I had a gift bag that I just bought and needed tissue paper for it. I could have used white tissue paper that I save from what I get when I go clothes shopping. But....I looked in a bin and I had an unopened package of tissue paper that had the exact colors as my gift bag! This tissue paper had been in there for years! I did get a kick out of that.

If you are not organized than you wind out buying things you have forgotten about.

I need to start getting rid of things also. It's hard to throw out perfectly good things. Fortunately, my grandson and his fiancee are buying a very large house, so they will need a lot of "stuff". I have told them that they can do some major "shopping" at my house (free, of course)...and then they can "shop" at my father's house.

If you are thinking of painting your garage floor, I would recommend concrete stain, rather than paint. We painted ours years ago with Sherwin Williams concrete stain--and added something (Shark Skin, I think it was called) that makes it slightly gritty and keeps it from being slippery. That really helps to keep the dust down.

I have been dejunking and decluttering my house for about 8 months now. i started doing it so we could get our whole 2 story house painted inside. It has been a lot of work and I have been ruthless. I researched and found a charity thrift store in town to give everything to that benifits local schools. Painting is done, it was a big job, we stayed in a hotel for 4 nights to be away from it all. Now we are on to flooring.

We moved a lot of stuff out into the garage and it is not all coming back in. It feels so much lighter in my house and I love it~~~if something not longer serves a purpose in my life and I do not need or love it~~it's gone!

It's Spring! We have new energy, and the bright sun and longer days inspire us!

Out with the old. In with (less) new.

DH washed windows and french doors on three sides of the house. The professional window washer is coming to do the small-pane and tall windows on the north. We've had two lovely rains that have washed everything else!

Mary, I think they got the hint. After we put the brick down, the sister of one of the women who lives there asked my daughter why we did it and she told her in a nice way. A couple days after we did the brick, the neighbor across from us and them put partial wire garden fencing around that corner of their yard. I think the same neighbors were running through their yard also.

I know the feeling. I know the feeling. I have good solid furniture. It is all antiques...solid wood, but I have so much stuff. I have gotten rid of a ton of it but I still have three tons left. It is my ambition to get rid of everything but the furniture and a few dishes before I die. Ha! Who am I kidding? Well, I would like to pare it down significantly because I hate for my daughter to have to deal with it.

Kathy, I'm with you - I'm packing to move to another state, soooooooooo - my neighbor is hauling away everything that isn't nailed down. The house has a hollow sound to it because most of the furniture has gone to her friend, who lost her house in a fire. It is SO FREEING!

She hauled off all the little kitchen appliances about an hour ago, and now I can look around and see that I don't miss ANY of it.

I gave her all the excess linens last week - I can actually see what I have now - feels SO GOOD. All the knick knacks are gone. I'm starting on the garage tomorrow, the yard this weekend - I am ON A ROLL! LOL

That's another thing, Marilyn, I keep thinking about when I'm gone and having the kids go through the piles of junk. I still need to put tons of pictures into photo albums. I'm off again in September and maybe I'll do that then.

I did call the county dump and found out they will take my burnt out kerosene heater, old microwaves and computers. So, one day this week I'll pack it all up in the car and take it out there. My regular garbage place is picking up the remnants of the love seat and desk. $22 to pick those two items up!

That's exactly how I felt last fall when we had our hardwood floors redone. LR, hallway and 3 bedrooms completely, totally emptied. Closets, cabinets, nooks and crannies.

Then the walls cleaned to remove all residual dust. Then we painted. Then I said I don't want to bring anything back in here. Then I said o.k. the bed, a tv and 2 chairs in the LR. haha. It really is a great feeling.

I brought a lot less back in, but more than I wanted I'll admit.

Kathy its nice that they took the hint. Good that the other neighbors are trying to stop them from trespassing on their property too. Keep up the good work. As for your pictures we too have tons of them. I started an album for my sons and their families. That way they will have them when we are gone.
Mary

Kathy-when you have some spare time to declutter-tell yourself you are not allowed to leave the room. It really helps me to stay focused instead of leaving to out thins in other rooms, doing laundry on the side etc. Renee is having a garage sale on Saturday and I'm bringing stuff there. We recently carpeted our master bedroom and I went thru everything in the room. I even organized my closet by colors LOL-my shirts look like a rainbow hanging in the closet. Its nice to make some $$ on your discards.

I started this week too. We had a bunch of outdated computer stuff we got rid of. Today I took some craft things down to a hospice thrift store. Slow but sure. I remember when my mom passed away and my sister and I (her mostly) cleaned out their house. My mom hardly ever threw anything away. Hardly anything was worth anything. She didn't like antiques. Now most of it is at my brothers house. Now that has to be cleaned out. MY other two sisters did not help at all. I just don't want my children to have to go through all of that.

Since I can't work on the flooring tomorrow I'm going to take the old computers, microwaves and possibly the kerosene heater and whatever else I can fit in my car to the dump tomorrow. Will feel good to get some junk out of here.

Mary, I bought two albums a year or more ago to make albums for both kids...still haven't started them. I never seem to have the energy or time. I'm hoping I'll be able to do a little here and there on my days off.

I am good about getting rid of things that no longer work, or obvious trash. It is my other stuff....but, yet it is "stuff" that I love. Like, I have literally thousands of marbles. At least 25 big jars full of them. Round glass fishing floats...maybe sixty...or more. I have at least five sets of dishes. Enough cookware to outfit ten kitchens. Dozens of kitchen utensils. Probably more than 100 cookbooks, antique Christmas ornaments...boxes full, cookie jars and tea pots....I don't even collect these but when I found "interesting" ones or collectible ones that were really cheap, back when I used to yard sale all the time, I got them. I had a lot of stuff packed neatly in liquor boxes, stacked in one of my storage buildings...and the raccoons got into them and broke almost everything. It was mostly pottery from the 1920's...'50's. I was almost glad. I could throw them out...no guilt. I have a lot of really neat old things....and they are things I love, so it is hard to get rid of them. I guess if I can just keep them sort of organized, my daughter can have someone in for an estate sale. Other things...I have over 100 pieces of cast iron cookware. I see there is a FB page for cast iron cooking and a lot of people say they wish they had more. As soon as I get a little time, I am going to offer them for free. I thought I'd send out one, then when the postage is re-imbursed, I'd send out another, and another. I don't have the funds or the time to pack and send them out all at once.

Will you PLEASE come to my house when you're done?

Oooh, Marilyn.....I'd love to go 'shopping' at your house, lol. Seriously.

Kath, I got a great desk I really love from Craig's list last year. It's a good place to shop.

lol..what a time you had! i'm afraid of moving some things myself, for fear it will fall apart...actually wouldn't mind...so want to add a set of cabinets (living room) and dump the china closet...we need a deep cleaning of the carpet from winter wear, and yet I keep putting it off...
and aside from a candle burn my darling dd did)+ I have a mid century solid maple desk, I can't sell...too 1960's....

Well, I didn't go to the dump like I had planned but hopefully will tomorrow. Lauren and I went to Lowes to talk to them about the laminate flooring. We ended up buying paint for the livingroom and stayed up half the night painting. I have to finish today, livingroom and hallway.

Speaking of laminate...Lauren's old girl scout leader, who I'm friends with on Facebook, messaged me that she can come help us with the laminate this weekend. I'm assuming she's bringing her husband. I just need to provide beer and burgers. lol I'm so relieved, even though I felt better after talking to the Lowe's rep yesterday, having someone who has done it before and told me she thought it was going to be so much fun to do, makes me feel even better.